Forget advance buzz of the 2011 Oscars; today it's all about laying your bets for the 2013 Academy Awards, as news emerged that Daniel Day-Lewis is to play the iconic president Abraham Lincoln in Steven Spielberg's oft-delayed biopic.

Spielberg and Dreamworks co-chairman and CEO Stacey Snider made the announcement four months after their previous leading man, Liam Neeson, withdrew from the project in July, citing his age as too large an obstacle.

"Daniel Day-Lewis would have always been counted as one of the greatest of actors, were he from the silent era, the golden age of film or even some time in cinema's distant future," Spielberg said today. "I am grateful and inspired that our paths will finally cross with Lincoln."

Based on the book Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin, and adapted by Tony Kushner (the man behind Angels in America), Lincoln will be released some two years after Robert Redford's similarly-themed film, The Conspirator, which focuses on the president's assassination.

Spielberg's film, meanwhile, will focus on the political collision of Lincoln and his cabinet at the end of the Civil War.

Filming is expected to begin next autumn, with released scheduled for a year later.